XVI. OPPOSED
There was a new tenant in the Hicks Street tenement. He arrived late oneafternoon and was shown two rooms, one in the rear building and anotherin the front one. Both were on the fourth floor. He demurred at theformer, thought it gloomy but finally consented to try it. The other, hesaid, was too expensive. The janitor--new to the business--was not muchtaken with him and showed it, which seemed to offend the newcomer, whowas evidently an irritable fellow owing to ill health.
However, they came to terms as I have said, and the man went away,promising to send in his belongings the next day. He smiled as he saidthis and the janitor who had rarely seen such a change take place ina human face, looked uncomfortable for a moment and seemed disposed tomake some remark about the room they were leaving. But, thinking betterof it, locked the door and led the way downstairs. As the prospectivetenant followed, he may have noticed, probably did, that the door theyhad just left was a new one--the only new thing to be seen in the wholeshabby place.
The next night that door was locked on the inside. The young man hadtaken possession. As he put away the remnants of a meal he had cookedfor himself, he cast a look at his surroundings, and imperceptiblysighed. Then he brightened again, and sitting down on his solitarychair, he turned his eyes on the window which, uncurtained and withoutshade, stared open-mouthed, as it were, at the opposite wall rising highacross the court.
In that wall, one window only seemed to interest him and that was on alevel with his own. The shade of this window was up, but there was nolight back of it and so nothing of the interior could be seen. But hiseye remained fixed upon it, while his hand, stretched out towards thelamp burning near him, held itself in readiness to lower the light at aminute's notice.
Did he see only the opposite wall and that unillumined window? Was thereno memory of the time when, in a previous contemplation of those dismalpanes, he beheld stretching between them and himself, a long, low benchwith a plain wooden tub upon it, from which a dripping cloth beat outupon the boards beneath a dismal note, monotonous as the ticking of aclock?
One might judge that such memories were indeed his, from the rapidglance he cast behind him at the place where the bed had stood in thosedays. It was placed differently now.
But if he saw, and if he heard these suggestions from the past, he wasnot less alive to the exactions of the present, for, as his glanceflew back across the court, his finger suddenly moved and the flameit controlled sputtered and went out. At the same instant, the windowopposite sprang into view as the lamp was lit within, and for severalminutes the whole interior remained visible--the books, the work-table,the cluttered furniture, and, most interesting of all, its owner andoccupant. It was upon the latter that the newcomer fixed his attention,and with an absorption equal to that he saw expressed in the countenanceopposite.
But his was the absorption of watchfulness; that of the other ofintrospection. Mr. Brotherson--(we will no longer call him Dunn evenhere where he is known by no other name)--had entered the room cladin his heavy overcoat and, not having taken it off before lighting hislamp, still stood with it on, gazing eagerly down at the model occupyingthe place of honour on the large centre table. He was not touchingit,--not at this moment--but that his thoughts were with it, that hiswhole mind was concentrated on it, was evident to the watcher acrossthe court; and, as this watcher took in this fact and noticed the lovingcare with which the enthusiastic inventor finally put out his finger tore-arrange a thread or twirl a wheel, his disappointment found utterancein a sigh which echoed sadly through the dull and cheerless room. Had heexpected this stern and self-contained man to show an open indifferenceto work and the hopes of a lifetime? If so, this was the first of themany surprises awaiting him.
He was gifted, however, with the patience of an automaton and continuedto watch his fellow tenant as long as the latter's shade remained up.When it fell, he rose and took a few steps up and down, but not with thecelerity and precision which usually accompanied his movements. Doubtdisturbed his mind and impeded his activity. He had caught a fairglimpse of Brotherson's face as he approached the window, and thoughit continued to show abstraction, it equally displayed serenity and acomplete satisfaction with the present if not with the future. Had hemistaken his man after all? Was his instinct, for the first time in hisactive career, wholly at fault?
He had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his quarry in the privacyof his own room, at home with his thoughts and unconscious of anyespionage, and how had he found him? Cheerful, and natural in all hismovements.
But the evening was young. Retrospect comes with later and more lonelyhours. There will be opportunities yet for studying this impassivecountenance under much more telling and productive circumstances thanthese. He would await these opportunities with cheerful anticipation.Meanwhile, he would keep up the routine watch he had planned for thisnight. Something might yet occur. At all events he would have exhaustedthe situation from this standpoint.
And so it came to pass that at an hour when all the other hard-workingpeople in the building were asleep, or at least striving to sleep, thesetwo men still sat at their work, one in the light, the other in thedarkness, facing each other, consciously to the one, unconsciouslyto the other, across the hollow well of the now silent court. Eleveno'clock! Twelve! No change on Brotherson's part or in Brotherson's room;but a decided one in the place where Sweetwater sat. Objects which hadbeen totally indistinguishable even to his penetrating eye could now beseen in ever brightening outline. The moon had reached the open spaceabove the court, and he was getting the full benefit of it. But it wasa benefit he would have been glad to dispense with. Darkness was likea shield to him. He did not feel quite sure that he wanted this shieldremoved. With no curtain to the window and no shade, and all thisbrilliance pouring into the room, he feared the disclosure of hispresence there, or, if not that, some effect on his own mind of thosememories he was more anxious to see mirrored in another's discomfiturethan in his own.
Was it to escape any lack of concentration which these same memoriesmight bring, that he rose and stepped to the window? Or was it under oneof those involuntary impulses which move us in spite of ourselves to dothe very thing our judgment disapproves?
No sooner had he approached the sill than Mr. Brotherson's shade flewway up and he, too, looked out. Their glances met, and for an instantthe hardy detective experienced that involuntary stagnation of the bloodwhich follows an inner shock. He felt that he had been recognised. Themoonlight lay full upon his face, and the other had seen and known him.Else, why the constrained attitude and sudden rigidity observable inthis confronting figure, with its partially lifted hand? A man likeBrotherson makes no pause in any action however trivial, without areason. Either he had been transfixed by this glimpse of his enemy onwatch, or daring thought! had seen enough of sepulchral suggestion inthe wan face looking forth from this fatal window to shake him fromhis composure and let loose the grinning devil of remorse from its ironprison-house? If so, the movement was a memorable one, and the hazardquite worth while. He had gained--no! he had gained nothing. He had beenthe fool of his own wishes. No one, let alone Brotherson, could havemistaken his face for that of a woman. He had forgotten his newly-grownbeard. Some other cause must be found for the other's attitude. Itsavoured of shock, if not fear. If it were fear, then had he roused anemotion which might rebound upon himself in sharp reprisal. Death hadbeen known to strike people standing where he stood; mysterious death ofa species quite unrecognisable. What warranty had he that it would notstrike him, and now? None.
Yet it was Brotherson who moved first. With a shrug of the shoulderplainly visible to the man opposite, he turned away from the window andwithout lowering the shade began gathering up his papers for the night,and later banking up his stove with ashes.
Sweetwater, with a breath of decided relief, stepped back and threwhimself on the bed. It had really been a trial for him to stand thereunder the other's eye, though his mind refused to formulate his fear, orto give him any satisfact
ion when he asked himself what there was in thesituation suggestive of death to the woman or harm to himself.
Nor did morning light bring counsel, as is usual in similar cases. Hefelt the mystery more in the hubbub and restless turmoil of the day thanin the night's silence and inactivity. He was glad when the stroke ofsix gave him an excuse to leave the room, and gladder yet when in doingso, he ran upon an old woman from a neighbouring room, who no sooner sawhim than she leered at him and eagerly remarked:
"Not much sleep, eh? We didn't think you'd like it. Did you seeanything?"
Now this gave him the one excuse he wanted.
"See anything?" he repeated, apparently with all imaginable innocence."What do you mean by that?"
"Don't you know what happened in that room?"
"Don't tell me!" he shouted out. "I don't want to hear any nonsense. Ihaven't time. I've got to be at the shop at seven and I don't feel verywell. What did happen?" he mumbled in drawing off, just loud enoughfor the woman to hear. "Something unpleasant I'm sure." Then he randownstairs.
At half past six he found the janitor. He was, to all appearance, in astate of great excitement and he spoke very fast.
"I won't stay another night in that room," he loudly declared, breakingin where the family were eating breakfast by lamplight. "I don't wantto make any trouble and I don't want to give my reasons; but that roomdon't suit me. I'd rather take the dark one you talked about yesterday.There's the money. Have my things moved to-day, will ye?"
"But your moving out after one night's stay will give that room a badname," stammered the janitor, rising awkwardly. "There'll be talk and Iwon't be able to let that room all winter."
"Nonsense! Every man hasn't the nerves I have. You'll let it in a week.But let or not let, I'm going front into the little dark room. I'll getthe boss to let me off at half past four. So that's settled."
He waited for no reply and got none; but when he appeared promptly at aquarter to five, he found his few belongings moved into a middle room onthe fourth floor of the front building, which, oddly perhaps, chanced tobe next door to the one he had held under watch the night before.
The first page of his adventure in the Hicks Street tenement had beenturned, and he was ready to start upon another.
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